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A NEW WORLD
In 1980 a great man asked a simple question "are you better off today then you were four years ago"? It's hard to believe that was three decades ago. I was just entering the seventh grade then, and as I grew into adulthood I chose to become a Republican because of the values and ideals President Reagan exemplified. Now in 2010 I have a son in the seventh grade myself and, like most Americans know exactly what the answer to that question would be if asked today. I have watched as our party has moved so far to the right it no longer represents how most of us Republicans feel. A party where talk show hosts have become "our voice" not because they have the courage to run for elected office themselves but because they are the only ones stepping up to the mic. Over the last decade our leaders have engaged our country in a war we had no business fighting, stripped away many of our civil liberties in the name of safe guarding us and deregulated our financial system to the point where the greed of a few has brought our entire economy to the verge of collapse.
I ran for Congress two years ago because I had become increasingly concerned about actions taken by the Bush administration, concerns I still very much have and are detailed in the following pages. However, I knew that even though I wasn't someone spouting the party line that running with an "R" after my name mind as well have been a "W" given the political climate in this country in 2008. Now two years later our country is in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, one that requires all other concerns to become secondary, for now. My father was a grown man during the Great Depression, having been born in 1902, sadly he died in 1978 when I was ten years old. I've missed him everyday, but now more than ever I wish he was around to share his experiences of that time. History tells us that our government's response in the 1930's was not to react, causing a more serious and prolonged depression. In an effort not to repeat the mistakes of the past, both the Bush and Obama administrations took immediate action. However, the conditions that setoff this economic downturn were not the same as those during the Great Depression, nor were they part of a normal cyclical adjustment in our economy; these were man-made, created by the actions of Wall Street and our banks.
The notion that some firms in America were "too big to fail" represents a fatal error in the thinking in Washington. The very nature of which suggests that the thousands of other businesses throughout this country, small businesses which employ the majority of Americans, are acceptable to fail. While the very institutions that created this economic meltdown were being shored up with taxpayer dollars, we on Main Street were left to fend for ourselves. As our neighbors lost their jobs they were no longer able to be our customers, which in turn caused difficulty in paying our own bills. Sound familiar?
What we witnessed my fellow citizens was wealthy and powerful people protecting other wealthy and powerful people. The fact that shortly after receiving bailout dollars these institutions were publicly handing out millions in bonuses doesn't show that "they don't get it", it demonstrates a feeling that they don't have to play by the same rules as we do. All the banks involved in this mess have failed to use the money given to them to make sensible loans and get the economy moving again, but have instead come up with new and creative ways to raise their incomes through higher interest rates on credit cards and higher bank fees. While our government is spending itself into oblivion through borrowed dollars, Wall Street has moved on and our banks are squeezing the life out of everyday citizens.
Enough is enough. The time has come to restore some sanity to this situation and to Washington.
First we stop printing money and start valuating it again against something tangible. Why do you think there's so much buying of gold and precious metals lately? Smart people know that a dollar can fast become worthless if people simply lose faith in it.
Second we have to live within our means, so should our government. I agree that Congress should have the right to borrow money, however this does not mean our government should operate with a blank check. The current amount of our national debt is unsustainable. Balance the budget.
More government programs are not the answer, less is. Taking from those who are willing to work and giving to those who aren't is not only ludicrous it threatens anarchy.
The federal government had no business taking over any corporations or bailing out banks and financial institutions. Yes, let them fail. Allow the free enterprise system to operate and the smaller banks that did not engage in this risky behavior will thrive.
Nature abhors a vacuum.
Hold those on Wall Street and the financial institutions responsible for their actions. Our integrity as a nation is not just measured by our actions on the world stage but also on how we keep our own house.
My fellow Americans, it is our responsibility to ensure that our generation is the last to have a lower standard of living than our parents. Our party, our country needs new leaders to step forward and offer the best of themselves in service.
So now I ask you: are you better off?
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